Rantor, founding member of the International League of Luddites, headquartered in South Austin, Texas 78704, celebrates National Indignation Week every day of the year.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Modern material culture: hand-held rotary broadcast spreader

In March of 1997, at Twin Oaks Hardware, we bought aan E-Z hand spreader, marked "by Republic" and also marked "made in [depiction in black and white of the United States flag] the U.S.A."; it cost $9.99. We'd be using it still, except that the plastic spinning handle of the crank was stepped on and broken off. In haste, a Scotts HandyGreen II spreader was picked up at Great Outdoors, because it was about to rain and we had a bit of lawn fertilizer on hand. It cost $22.99 and isn't worth a bit of that. The crank-handle is puny, the crank turns with effort, and the "ergonomic" brace leaves bruises on the user's arm. At Shoal Creek Nursery, we found an EarthWay EV-N-SPREAD 3400 hand seeder/spreader. It's made in the U.S.A. and cost $19.97. The crank-handle is skimpy, but not as skimpy as the one on the Scotts device and the crank turns better than the one on the Scotts, also. It would still be wonderful to figure out a way to rig a handle for the E-Z spreader.